Budget for business

Just in case you were wondering what was in the Budget last week for small businesses, we have reproduced below the comments made by George Osborne and posted to the GOV.UK website:

Backing business and creating opportunity

This Budget backs business and enterprise to drive up productivity growth and create job opportunities. This Budget continues to lower taxes, with new support for small business and entrepreneurs, while also modernising the tax system and taking steps to ensure that taxes are fair and are paid.

The government will:

cut the rate of corporation tax to 17% in 2020, benefiting over one million companies, large and small

cut business rates for all properties in England, with 600,000 small firms paying no rates so that the business rates burden will fall by £6.7 billion over the next five years

cut the higher rate of Capital Gains Tax from 28% to 20% and the basic rate from 18% to 10% from April 2016 (except for residential property and carried interest), and extend entrepreneurs’ relief to long term investors in unlisted companies

cut National Insurance contributions for 3.4 million self-employed people, by abolishing Class 2 National Insurance

modernise the corporation tax rules on losses, making the system more flexible for businesses while ensuring that companies making large profits pay tax on these, and further restricting banks’ use of their historic losses

reform Stamp Duty Land Tax on non-residential property transactions, cutting the tax for many small businesses purchasing property, with over 90% of non-residential transactions paying the same or less

abolish the bureaucratic and burdensome Carbon Reduction Commitment energy efficiency scheme and replace it, in a revenue neutral way, with an increase in the Climate Change Levy from 2019

support the oil and gas industry by permanently zero-rating Petroleum Revenue Tax, reducing the Supplementary Charge from 20% to 10% and introducing targeted measures to encourage investment in exploration, infrastructure and late-life assets

give large companies more time to prepare for a new corporation tax payments schedule, with a broadly neutral impact on the public finances

A bit of history this week but with a practical outcome for 2019.
Up to 1582, Europe used the Julian calendar introduced by the Romans in 45BC. Unfortunately, the Julian calendar differed from the solar calendar ...

HMRC normally send out a tax statement this time of the year to all self-assessment taxpayers that have submitted a tax return for 2017-18.
As we reported last week, this will list any balance of tax ...